Britain has almost always been a terrible place for young architects. So many things conspire to stifle young talent: the lack of open competitions, the extreme conservatism of developers and house builders, a pervasive lack of the appreciation of the value – cultural, social and aesthetic – that architecture can bring, a deep memory of the profound failures of modern architecture last century and a longer period of study than that required for doctors.

Yet those same constraints also, paradoxically, produce generations of architects who are used to fighting to get what they want, whose default position is struggle. This epic battle to build anything of real value breeds a kind of intellectual toughness and an architectonic pragmatism that ensures that, once given a break, they produce buildings brimming with ideas.

There are a number of clearly identifiable directions and approaches in contemporary British architecture, most of which stem from already established traditions. The Victorian obsession with engineering and megastructures, the responses to which led a post-industrial society to develop high-tech (Foster and Rogers) and which became the most easily exportable branch of British design in the 1970s and 1980s, has more or less disappeared. Occasional flashes of brilliance, such as Foster’s Gherkin in the City, demonstrate that it survives in a smoothed-out form. Zaha Hadid, who spent decades producing little more than paper architecture, has evolved into a sought-after architect of extreme sophistication and radical vision, while Foreign Office Architects (who look likely to build a superb Olympic stadium for London and who could easily have been on this list), have become so well known and so accomplished at their architectural folding games that they can already truly be said to have emerged.

The other up-and-coming arm of young practice operates far from these exotic formal games and instead builds earthy, rooted and intellectually grounded structures that address issues of urbanism, vernacular, local culture and both the achievements and failures of modernism. At the forefront of this loose but roughly coherent grouping are Caruso St John and Sergison Bates, both of which have spent over a decade refining extremely rigorous approaches and a spare, intelligent architectural language. Their architecture builds on developments in Switzerland and Portugal, countries where modernism was not rejected but rather was assimilated into existing traditions – so that the finest architects see a continuity between vernacular, baroque, romanesque and contemporary traditions. David Adjaye, another architect who would qualify to be here in terms of age but is too successful to be said to be emerging, can also be associated with this group.

With the exception of Softroom, it would be possible to argue that all these practices emerge from this latter tradition, even if some (such as FAT) may define themselves almost in opposition to it. Despite the blandness of what is actually being built over most of the country, this is in fact an extremely interesting and diverse time for British architecture and this briefly sketched cross section promises an engaging and fascinating near future.

BRITAIN’S YOUNG TURKS: ARCHITECTURE

FAT

FAT Fashion Architecture Taste (FAT) are among the extremely select group of architects who are happy to define their work as postmodern. Whereas most designers are embarrassed by the garish symbolism, pick-and-mix decoration and pop aesthetic of this vivid reaction to modernist austerity, FAT positively wallow in it. Learning as much from Las Vegas and Legoland as they have from home improvement and chav chic, they are at once populist and perceptive, true originals who are creating some of the most striking and different contemporary architecture and who, given the right breaks, could make huge strides towards redefining big architectural nouns such as decoration, ornament and folly.

Sean Griffiths’ own house is at once one of the most eccentric and brilliant pieces of British domestic architecture of recent decades, a surreal fish-slap in the face to the acres of bland minimalism and self-regarding pseudomodernism that populate our colour supplements. It is the only building I know which makes me smile every time I pass it and that is a serious achievement.

Tel: +44 (0)20-7251 6735; www.fat.co.uk

6a

Their name taken from the house number of their bohemian London studio, 6a have managed to combine the seriousness that has characterised their particular arm of contemporary architecture with a lightness of touch that belongs as much to the world of art as it does to that of building. Hairywood, the temporary tower they designed last year for the Architecture Foundation in east London’s Old Street exerted a joyful, gravitational pull, the curious paradox of a viewing tower seemingly sucking in the surrounding grey cityscape and spewing it out happier. The swirling, almost art nouveau patterns cut from plywood recalled Rapunzel’s hair, the love seats at the top looked over nothing much but each other. Their wonderful Oki Ni shop in Savile Row evokes the felt and braces asceticism of Joseph Beuys rather than the anodyne minimalism still de rigueur in fashion retail. Current projects include a contemporary coaching-inn and two high-profile galleries, a major extension to the South London Gallery and a new gallery for a charitable art trust delicately sculpted out of two Georgian houses just east of the City.

Tel: +44 (0)20-7242 5422; www.6a.co.uk

De Rijke Marsh Morgan

An interest in off-the-shelf, standard products, often used in seemingly incongruous situations combined with a sense of architectural theatre has made DrMM one of the most consistently interesting – and unpredictable – architectural practices. A subdued building on an unpromising plot rammed hard up against south London Victorian railway arches for developer/architect Roger Zogolovitch now houses their crowded, vibrant offices. Clad in simulated timber siding, it fades into the grimy urbanity but, within, see-though floors reveal a circuit diagram of conduits and pipes and dazzling colour shoots through the spaces.

The office gained massive recognition for its work at the comprehensive Kingsdale School in Dulwich, south London, where a huge translucent roof of air-filled pillows transformed a scruffy yard into a dramatic atrium and architectural centrepiece. Currently working on a significant social housing scheme in nearby Elephant and Castle, DrMM’s work is clever, thoughtful and visually arresting and is building them a healthy and enviable reputation.

Tel: +44 (0)20-7803 0777; www.drmm.co.uk

Softroom

The new Upper Class lounge for Virgin Atlantic at London’s Heathrow airport is a delightful piece of cod futurism, the kind of film-set slickness needed to justify those prices. To make anything of the grim spaces of Heathrow’s blank structures is a huge achievement and this is great fun.

Softroom are the youngest architects on this list and they made their name while still students with a shortlisting for the ill-starred Cardiff Bay Opera House (a competition won by Zaha Hadid and then extremely ungraciously dropped), following it up with the striking shiny box of the Kielder Belvedere in Northumberland.

Less polemical than the other architects on this list they seem to find a new architectonic approach for each scheme which mitigates against them developing a house style.

The restrained language of the new Jameel Galleries of Islamic Art for the V&A and the grittier urbanity of their first new-build housing scheme in Southwark, south London indicates they are well able to sublimate the space-age stuff when required.

Tel: +44 (0)20 7408 0864; www.softroom.com

Lynch Architects

Lynch Architects’ work is articulate and generous, building on local tradition and the underrated vernacular of the everyday. An undeservedly small oeuvre was even further reduced by the fire that destroyed their ELBWO Building in Forest Gate, east London last year. A courtyard community facility for local black women, it built on West Indian domestic models and was a simple, cultured and sophisticated piece of urbanism.

Lynch’s houses display an enticing mix of urban and rustic grit. They whisper rather than shout, speaking in a sophisticated architectonic language rich in references and grain but which avoids the prissy obsession with detail that terminally affects many of his peers. Using the most basic of materials he has crafted his own wonderfully translucent studio and house in Hoxton, east London, a rigorous reinterpretation of a Georgian town house (blended with DIY Adolf Loos) in Hackney and an eccentric holiday home in Norfolk.

A passionate speaker and teacher and fearsomely well read, Lynch is among the most engaged and engaging of the younger crop of architects.

Tel: +44 (0)20-7739 5760; www.lyncharchitects.co.uk

BRITAIN’S YOUNG TURKS: INTERIOR DESIGN

By Simon Brooke

Chris Dezille

For someone who trained as a window dresser, Chris Dezille, who founded Honky five years ago after ten years in interior design, has a style that is distinctly cool, masculine and unfussy.

“I like to use features such as panels that are lit from behind to break things up and vary the look of a room,” he says as we tour a penthouse he has just completed in Victoria, a space that is very much about clean lines. There are white walls and glass and stainless steel but natural materials also feature, which help to produce a feeling of calm. The simplicity of his interiors is softened further with the use of wood grains and a natural palette.

The home in south-west London that he shares with his wife Sarah is similarly understated and modern. But creating this look in a Victorian property provided him with valuable experience and insights for his professional life. “You can see it from both points of view and you know what it’s like for the client – you also know from experience how many times you’re going to have to get the top guy back before the finish is absolutely right, for instance,” he says.

Tel: +44 (0)20-8673 4188; www.honky.co.uk

Jonathan Tuckey

Jonathan Tuckey’s approach to interior design and architecture is more about evolution than revolution.

“We recycle buildings and adapt them for new life,” he explains. “It’s about conserving details and maintaining the integrity of the house we’re working on.”

But this doesn’t mean being timid. At a mews house in west London, Tuckey and his team completely reconfigured the front elevation but this was in order to emphasise the open quality of a mews house.

“Mewses have no pavements and people sit outside on warm summer evenings,” he explains, “and so we wanted to maintain that quality. We also increased the amount of light coming in by creating a skylight that brings light right down through the building.”

In his own home, a former Victorian steelworks, the brickwork and wooden beamed roof become major features. “As well as introducing contemporary fittings we wanted to make the most of the existing materials,” he says.

Tel: +44 (0)20-8960 1909; www.jonathantuckey.com

Nia Morris

Nia Morris began her working life as a solicitor in the City of London before changing career after her children were born. She can see similarities between her old job and what she does now. “They’re both about managing large projects – and believe it or not you can be creative as a lawyer,” she says.

Working with a new partnership, Studio OHM, her current projects include a double barn conversion in Cornwall and a town house in London. “I often work on traditional properties but I give them a very modern look – even the barns will be cutting edge,” she says.

Her style is contemporary – she mixes vintage and modern accessories together with one-off furnishings and features clean lines but eschews minimalism in favour of strong colours and unusual textures.

“I’m currently doing an art deco apartment, for instance, where we’ve kept the clean lines of the building but we’re using rich, dark colours to contrast with them,” she says. “It makes for a very striking look.”

Tel: +44 (0)20-7586 5670; www.niamorrisdesign.com

Justin van Breda

Justin van Breda’s first encounter with Nicky Haslam was not promising.

“It was a miserably rainy afternoon and I walked into his shop where he happened to be – I put my CV on his desk and assumed I’d never hear anything more,” he says.

But the 24-year-old South African landed a job with Haslam’s NH Design and has not looked back since. He won the Futures of Design award at Decorex in 2002 and he now designs and manufactures his own range of furniture.

Van Breda’s work has an elegant classical look (he advocates “a sexy design vision that bridges interiors you can just flop down in with a sense of grandeur”) and he makes good use of unusual materials from his homeland. “I’m very committed to manufacturing in South Africa. We use things like abalone, which is a mother-of-pearl sea shell, as part of a mirror frame, for instance,” he says.

His interior design style is much more varied, incorporating contemporary and antique looks – and sometimes his own furniture. “You just have to listen to a house,” he explains.

Tel: +44 (0)20-7730 3991; www.j-v-b.com

Suzy Hoodless

For Suzy Hoodless moving from interiors editor at Wallpaper magazine to establishing her own interior design consultancy has been a seamless transition.

“I was constantly developing ideas – going to a city, researching young designers and manufacturers and then styling a house for a shoot and I decided that I wanted to do it for clients rather than for the magazine,” she says.

But this breadth of experience and exposure to so many different influences also presented Hoodless with the challenge of developing her own personal style.

In fact the Hoodless look is now very distinctive.

“I love mixing things – a Louis XIV chair with a Cappellini table by Jasper Morrison, for instance,” she explains.

This eclecticism is further enhanced with daring use of colour – vividly demonstrated in her forthcoming range of wallpapers.

“Bold colours are very important to me – I suppose I’m just not a very subtle person in that way,” she laughs.

Tel: +44 (0)20-7221 8844; www.suzyhoodless.com